Avinash Godbole

Mr. Godbole s research focuses on environmental refugees in China. Environmental refugees are those people that are displaced from their homeland due to factors such as desertification, salinsation of agricultural land, disappearance of forests, floods and drought. In the next two decades, 100 million people are expected to be displaced globally due to desertification of agricultural land, 30 million of which are expected to be in China. There is often little government assistance for these victims, who relocate to other regions and across borders. Unable to utilize their traditional knowledge, they often end up being low wage, unskilled urban labor and can create tension in resource stressed urban and rural areas to which they relocate. Mr. Godbole plans to address the classification of these refugees in China as the country is poised at a crossroads of developmental policy. He argues that policy should address the needs and affects of this internal displacement.